Queen Quality.

[.30WCF]

What can you tell by how hot a queen is?
All of my queens are emergency queens at this moment. I crushed a few runty ones and tried again. I currently have one nice curvy queen that has a long wide abdomen. The rest are long and narrow. I don?t want to buy queens. My next step would be rearing by forcing a swarm in a nuc since I?m cheap before buying mating nucs and queen cups. I?m thinking of swarming out a nuc and harvesting cells to requeen my hives. They seem to be good queens so far with good patterns, just not the curvaceous, voluptuous queens I?ve seen in the past that make you go ooooolalaaaaa!

[Ben Framed]

What can you tell by how hot a queen is?
All of my queens are emergency queens at this moment. I crushed a few runty ones and tried again. I currently have one nice curvy queen that has a long wide abdomen. The rest are long and narrow. I don?t want to buy queens. My next step would be rearing by forcing a swarm in a nuc since I?m cheap before buying mating nucs and queen cups. I?m thinking of swarming out a nuc and harvesting cells to requeen my hives. They seem to be good queens so far with good patterns, just not the curvaceous, voluptuous queens I?ve seen in the past that make you go ooooolalaaaaa!

30WFC  I have noticed that the long narrow queens usually fill out to become beauties once they are mated and laying. Are these long narrow ones mated? Are you in a dearth? If mated and a dearth they may be slow at laying? If they are laying, how are the patterns? Tight and full or other?

[TheHoneyPump]

My best queens are NOT the big curvy voluptuous ones. Those usually end up being the first ones I pawn off.
Never judge a queen on size or colour. The beekeeper should examine her closely for deformities or injuries. If she has all her parts in the right places, has successfully mated, and is not limping or too battered after her trials, then allow only her ongoing vitality and performance to be the basis for your decisions.
If she is substandard in any way, the experts (the bees) will let you know by starting a couple of supercedure cells. If they dont then all is as it should be. 
If the ones you have now are doing well, I would say you are done and just go enjoy the rest of your summer.
If expanding the apiary and in need of more queens then review the various methods used and pick the one that suits you best.

Hope that helps!

[.30WCF]

What can you tell by how hot a queen is?
All of my queens are emergency queens at this moment. I crushed a few runty ones and tried again. I currently have one nice curvy queen that has a long wide abdomen. The rest are long and narrow. I don?t want to buy queens. My next step would be rearing by forcing a swarm in a nuc since I?m cheap before buying mating nucs and queen cups. I?m thinking of swarming out a nuc and harvesting cells to requeen my hives. They seem to be good queens so far with good patterns, just not the curvaceous, voluptuous queens I?ve seen in the past that make you go ooooolalaaaaa!

30WFC  I have noticed that the long narrow queens usually fill out to become beauties once they are mated and laying. Are these long narrow ones mated? Are you in a dearth? If mated and a dearth they may be slow at laying? If they are laying, how are the patterns? Tight and full or other?

They lay good patterns of wall to wall brood.
We are probably winding down for the summer and just beginning the dearth season.


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[.30WCF]

My best queens are NOT the big curvy voluptuous ones. Those usually end up being the first ones I pawn off.
Never judge a queen on size or colour. The beekeeper should examine her closely for deformities or injuries. If she has all her parts in the right places, has successfully mated, and is not limping or too battered after her trials, then allow only her ongoing vitality and performance to be the basis for your decisions.
If she is substandard in any way, the experts (the bees) will let you know by starting a couple of supercedure cells. If they dont then all is as it should be. 
If the ones you have now are doing well, I would say you are done and just go enjoy the rest of your summer.
If expanding the apiary and in need of more queens then review the various methods used and pick the one that suits you best.

Hope that helps!

Thanks.
I wasnt sure if the emergency rearing they had stunted them, or if they were not mated well since they didn?t get the big wide abdomen. They seem to lay well for now. I?ll let them do their thing then. Thanks again.


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[Ben Framed]

30WFC  I have noticed that the long narrow queens usually fill out to become beauties once they are mated and laying. Are these long narrow ones mated? Are you in a dearth? If mated and a dearth they may be slow at laying? If they are laying, how are the patterns? Tight and full or other?

They lay good patterns of wall to wall brood.
We are probably winding down for the summer and just beginning the dearth season.

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I would not be concerned in that case. You are in good shape..



                                                                                                                                                    .

[van from Arkansas]

All* queens are raised by the emergency method if one defines the emergency method as suddenly making a hive queenless.  There are some differences though.  Certainly I raise queens by creating a queenless hive.  However, I add lots of nurse bees.  I add plenty of food too.  I do carefully control the larva age as I graft.  But in the long run, my queens are all created by suddenly making a hive queenless or stated another way: creating emergency conditions that the bees immediately create queens cells.

*exception, Supersedure and swarm cells are created for different reasons other than a queenless hive.

My point is this: don't believe a queen is inferior due to being created under queenless conditions otherwise known as an emergency cell.  As already pointed out in above responses, give the queen a chance.

[.30WCF]

All* queens are raised by the emergency method if one defines the emergency method as suddenly making a hive queenless.  There are some differences though.  Certainly I raise queens by creating a queenless hive.  However, I add lots of nurse bees.  I add plenty of food too.  I do carefully control the larva age as I graft.  But in the long run, my queens are all created by suddenly making a hive queenless or stated another way: creating emergency conditions that the bees immediately create queens cells.

*exception, Supersedure and swarm cells are created for different reasons other than a queenless hive.

My point is this: don't believe a queen is inferior due to being created under queenless conditions otherwise known as an emergency cell.  As already pointed out in above responses, give the queen a chance.

I?m going to give her a shot for the season if she keeps doing good. I?m definitely not opposed to emergency queens at the moment, but was concerned that she and a couple others are small. I had a time getting a queen back in some of the hives.
I?ve been growing steadily since I got my two nucs last season. Had 8 hives going before this year?s swarm season. I gave some ten frame hives away. All these were just splits and no special treatment. Just put some eggs in a box and didn?t look back.  The method doesn?t bother me at all.
I was concerned that with all the struggles after the formic treatment I may have ended up with a bottom of the barrel queen or two.
They failed to requeen with anything from the original queen. I gave them eggs from the one hive that didn?t lose its queen. The raised a runt of a queen from that frame. I crushed her and gave more eggs. Then I get a queen that?s missing a back leg. I crush her and gave eggs. Then i finally started getting some queens back.
Thanks. I?m good with her now. She is laying good. I?ll put this one in the win category for size doesn?t matter.


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[Michael Bush]

Proof that no external measurements mean anything:
https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/11/1/82/2493014?login=true

[Oldbeavo]

Spot on Mr Bush, like HP, judge a queen on her performance and or the performance of her bees. Performance of the bees to me is there ability to gather honey or their temperament.
If she is so called skinny but lays heaps of eggs in any space available then she stays. More bees, more honey. Most times.

[Ben Framed]

Good information. That being the case, we can chalk another one for  Don ?The Fat Bee Man? Kuchenmeister.  ✔️

😊